What lovely cars Barry…
Have you left them in UK or are you importing them to France ?
I left them all behind, never to be seen again.
The blue one was a NSU Prinz, then a fiat 600, 500 topless, 500 suicide, 500 with a 650cc engine , 500 estate, Lada niva convertible, and our Daimler V8.
Ah well… I hope you had some happy times driving them, in days gone by…
Thank you, sorry about the mistake I was getting carried away. Barry
What an awful loss to you, Barry. A collection like that expresses a real passion and devotion.
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I had my driving lessons in one.
I passed my test in one, looking back, terrible cars, but I thought it was great at the time - until I bought a real car
Mine was silver
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Do you still have the fastback??
Nothing wrong with Imps, mechanically they were light years ahead of the Mini. Mind you the engine (and subframes) were much better when found in a Clan Crusader.
Mine was this colour but was rare in that it did not have a sunroof. Mind you with only 350 ever built they were always pretty rare. Mine was number 135. I wonder where is is now.
PS I’ve just read an article I found yesterday which points out that the Clan accelerated from 0-80mph 12 seconds faster than an Imp Sport.
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I wish - it went a long time ago. Served me well for many years though. Bought an Audi 100s Coupe after that,
Same colour but black roof. Destroyed it (the engine) on the M6 after a long weekend in the lakes. Got a Quattro after.
It was only when I came to France that I bought a car that wasn’t a Coupe
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I just had the coolest time, tooling around central France in a sporty red Fiat 500. Couldn’t resist mentioning it. Very classy, and so nice to drive in the countryside AND along those narrow streets in the oldest parts of towns…
I think folks have mentioned the FIat 500 before, in other threads, and how they enjoy theirs. Plus, I’m having a hard time finding one for sale, used… So, must be a car that most owners keep hold of, maybe…
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The Fiat 500 you hired is a different beast from the ones in Barry’s post. The ones in his collection are the original 500cc rear engined, twin cylinder, air cooled cars from the 1960s/70s; your hire car is the modern retro styled model. They are popular in Europe but less so than the Mini that shares the same floor plan. There are plenty around secondhand.
https://www.leboncoin.fr/recherche/?category=2&text=Fiat%20500&search_in=subject
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Thanks for the correction, David, and for the search result.
I echo Pete’s sentiments Barry…that must have been quite a loss and difficult to deal with in emotional terms…do you know what happened to them…???
Simple really, I was approaching 65 years time to retire, daughter had moved to france 12 months before. We lived in a local government house, so we had nothing to sell except the cars to pay for transport costs for our move to France.
Most of the stuff we was robbed, some of the cars went to one buyer who diddled us out of 1000`s, The chap who bought my garage still owes me £1000, that was 14 years ago.
I was ill for 14 months couldnt sleep etc, very sad I got over it.
I brought a fiat 500 estate here that needs a lot of welding, “One day”.
Problem is that I have deep vein thrombosis in my left leg, and cant get on the floor, ( correction I cant get up again).
I bought a little french sans permis, and restored that, very interesting, That needs new brakes.
I will get better but dvt takes time.
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I can well imagine that you were diddled out of thousands…predatory capitalist vultures not only in the upper echelons of “finance” and “banking” but also found amongst the lower echelons who like so many of us are just trying to survive…it must have hurt on many levels and you have my empathy and sympathy…
Wishing you well with your DVT…